International Women's Day: He Sits by a Well

Reading John 4:5-42

Today is International Women’s Day and it is serendipitous that today was a day that Cynthia offered to assist lead worship. It is also serendipitous that today we have the story of the meeting of Jesus with a Samaritan woman at the well. Today is also a day that I chose to connect with the concept of our congregation value of innovating. I hope and pray that some of the things that we have included today in the service and sermon might be taking us all to new insights.

I also want to express my deep gratitude that I am part of a Church movement that has recognised the role of women in ordained ministry. I was blessed to be ordained alongside a woman and good friend Rev Dr Wendi Sergeant, over 27 years ago.

The theme of International Women’s Day is “Give to Gain” and is accompanied by the Give to Gain pose. You will notice the contrast in this pose with what I see as a symbol of praying with closed and clasped hands. The Give to gain pose has cupped hands out front, in this we universally we signify the act of giving and receiving. Throughout history, the open palm has been associated with truth, honesty, and openness.

It is my practice to pray at the beginning of preaching. Today I want to invite you to strike this Give to Gain pose as we pray for the ability to discern what God might be saying to us today.

Let us pray

Loving God we come into your presence prayerfully giving our attention to your voice and receiving wisdom that leads to transformation. We come with a commitment to be seeking truth, honesty, and openness about who you are and who we are called to be. In Christ we pray. Amen.

In the spirit of gaining from the voice of women I want to begin by referencing the speech by the President of Slovenia Nataša Pirc Musar made at the United Nations on the 23^rd of September 2025. In the opening of her speech Musar points to the hopefulness following the end of World War 2 in 1945. The hope that a new era of peace and cooperation would emerge “embodied by the creation of the United Nations.” There was a parallel movement during the same era that established the World Council of Churches as well.

In 2025 her assessment was that the vision of peace, security and co-operation “has not materialised. In fact, the situation has worsened.” She outlines issues within the security council, the lagging of the sustainable development goals, issues around the seeming irrelevance of international laws, a retreat from both the convention on genocide and the commitment countries had made to address climate change. In her speech she asks, “how are we to explain these trends … to our children?”

I wonder what the President of Slovenia might say about the events of the last week. We lament and mourn that yet another round of human conflict and war is underway and lives are being lost.

Her speech is a compelling call to action. It also contains a direct challenge to us about empowering women and girls. She says, “True equity requires systemic change, and so women’s empowerment must remain at the heart of our global agenda. International organisations must weave a gender perspective into every strand of policymaking. And that should be a result of effective participation of women and girls themselves.”

This speech by Nataša Pirc Musar may seem a distant thing from a dusty well in Samaria over 2000 years ago but as people of faith the question which always lies before us is how the stories of the scriptures transcend the moment of their telling and coincide with our reality. Let me say that again, “as people of faith the question which always lies before us is how the stories of the scriptures transcend the moment of their telling and coincide with our reality”.

Let me share a vision of the interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. It is written in the form of a poem and was inspired by the commentary on this passage written by another woman, Reverend Professor Dorothy Lee.

He sits by a well
By Peter Lockhart

In the heat of the day
He sits
By a well
He thirsts
We all thirst
Maslow understood
Water is life and
Without water
There is
No life

A woman arrives
And he steps
And steps again
And steps once more
And steps yet again
Crossing boundaries
Of culture
Of race
Of religion
Of gender, and
He says,

“Give me a drink”

He proclaims
“I thirst”
His humanity
His mortality laid bare
“I thirst”
Words that echo
In our minds
Of another day
Of nails and hard wood
And sour wine
On a sponge
“I thirst”

 
He is truly one of us
One of all of us
He is human

Yet …

He is more
Word made flesh
Living Water
 

And she
She is
She is all of us
 

We do not know
If he was
Able to
Slake his thirst
But there is
Reciprocity
In the request
An offering made
From a
Human to
The divine, and
 

An offer made
From the divine
To the human
Living water
Her soul
Our souls,
Longing, longing
For God
As a deer
Longs for

The flowing stream
Of being known
Of being accepted
Of being understood
Of being acknowledged
Of belonging

 

Living water
Poured out
Into the dry lands
Of her existence
For he knew the
Trials and tribulations
That may have led to
Five husbands
And yet another man
But with
No judgement
Just invitation
To worship
In Spirit
And in Truth?

The Truth
Who is he
Who comes
As the Way
And the Life
To meet us
To meet us
In our needs
With living water

 
As water flows
From beside a well
In Samaria, and from
A wound in his side
We find hope
For this is
Living water
In which
We are known
You and I
And you  
And you
And you and I
 
This is Spirit
And this Truth
 
In the heat of the day
He sits
By a well
And says  
“All are welcome”
All are welcome
To sit with him here
Who is both human
And yet …
Fully divine
As he steps
And steps again
And steps once more
And steps yet again
To welcome us
Into his life
 
(Pause)

 As we sit with the words of this poem about Jesus and the woman, I was led to sharing another poem with you. It is a poem called “Breathe” by Becky Hemsley. When I first read it, I was reminded of an often quoted section of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” I have asked Vicki to read the poem. And as you listen I wonder if the woman in this poem is having a divine experience of acceptance similar to the one of the woman by the well.

 

Breathe

By Becky Hemsley

she sat at the back
and they said she was shy
she led from the front
and they hated her pride
 
they asked her advice
and then questioned her guidance
they branded her loud
then were shocked by her silence
 
when she shared no ambition
they said it was sad
so she told them her dreams
and they said she was mad
 
they told her they'd listen
then covered their ears
and gave her a hug
whilst they laughed at her fears
 
and she listened to all of it
thinking she should
be the girl they told her to be
best as she could
 
but one day she asked
what was best for herself
instead of trying
to please everyone else
 
so she walked to the forest
and stood with the trees
she heard the wind whisper
and dance with the leaves
 
and she spoke to the willow
the elm and the pine
and she told them what
she'd been told time after time
 
she told them she never
felt nearly enough
she was either too little
or far, far too much
 
too loud or too quiet
too fierce or too weak
too wise or too foolish
too bold or too meek
 
then she found a small clearing
surrounded by firs
and she stopped and she heard
what the trees said to her
 
and she sat there for hours
not wanting to leave
for the forest said nothing...
it just let her breathe 

Talking to the Wild: The bedtime stories we never knew we needed.

 As we continue to discern what God might be saying to us today let us stay seated to sing the old song “I heard the voice of Jesus say”.

Song I heard the voice of Jesus say

The interaction between Jesus and the woman is interrupted. The interlopers are the disciples returning with food. Food and water, essential for human life, form the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Jesus is the bread of life as much as he is living water.

The disciples’ return signals the woman should go, and she returns to the village to share about her encounter with Jesus, the living water. It is the unspoken words of the disciples that are telling in this moment.

They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you speaking with her?”

To help us glimpse into the psyche of the disciples I have written a reflection which might have been a part of the longer internal discourse of one of the disciples. Imagine in your minds eye one of the disciples as he approaches Jesus speaking with the woman and hear his internal dialogue.

The disciple

By Peter Lockhart

Oh no, he's at it again.

Why are you speaking with her? What is it that you want? You are going to get us all in trouble. Oh, my goodness she is a Samaritan as well.

A Samaritan as well. at a well. It is just inviting more trouble. You will make us all unclean, gathering up all these outcasts that you do.

We should not be seen with her, let alone be seen talking to her. Why are you speaking with her? What business of yours is it to engage with her? We left you alone for just a little while. Couldn’t you just keep to yourself.

We should have made you stay with us. Kept you out of trouble. Kept us out of trouble. Kept you to ourselves. Don't the traditions and the rules apply to us all.

One of these days you're going to get me killed. One of these days you're going to get yourself killed.

We are following you. I want to trust you. I want to believe in you. You are our teacher, our Rabbi, but you are ours alone and we are yours.

Why are you speaking with her? What is it that you want? You are going to get us all in trouble.

Oh, thank goodness … she is leaving.

(pause)

Within the response of the disciple, we see the rigidity of the religious thinker. A thinker who says who is in and who is out at who fails to see the common humanity that we all share in. We all thirst. We all need water for life, and we need living water to really live.

Here beside this well, essential questions of our existence are being explored and reverberate through time and space to help us make connection with God and with the meaning of our lives and with the words of the Slovenia President

In the words of Nataša Pirc Musar we hear a plea for peace and cooperation which requires a deeper recognition of our common humanity. We all thirst for life. But for shared life in the world, we all need to be able step across the boundaries and barriers of race, and religion, and culture, and gender to share this beautiful world in which we live.

When Jesus asks the woman at the well for water he is being a subversive. He understands that “True equity requires systemic change” and change involves the bravery to break down the barriers. He lives this. He embodies it. He is redesigning relationships and asserting the universality of God’s love. A loving God not bound by gender or any other category or box that we might want to put people in.

Share with me this pose again. Give to gain. How has God been seeking truth, and honesty, and openness in you as you have listened? How has the innovative and creative God been at work in you as you have listened?  What have you been discerning and learning today?

After a few moments of silence, I have asked Julie to read the opening of Rahcel Mann’s book which invites us to think of God differently as we continue to break down barriers and create a space for welcome and inclusion.

Reflection on God 
by Rachel Mann

God dances with us.
They leap and twirl and spin.
They hold our hands gently
as they follow our first tentative steps,
then grip our waist firmly
as they lead us
in a daring twist and bend.
God, you see,
is neither leader nor follower,
but both leader and follower,
neither male nor female,
but both male and female.
God is gender-full and gender-less –
an ambiguous flesh-less being
who leaps into fleshy delight
to join in our dance.
God is under our skin,
in our skin,
gently breathing on our skin.
Our God cannot be separated from us
or contained within us
even as we feel God's embrace,
we cannot define or confine them.
God will not be caged.
Amen

(Transformations: Grounding Theology is trans and non-binary lives)

Belonging

Matthew 4:1-11

Message Part 1: Belonging in the world affirmed in God’s Love

There are three parts to this message. Within some of the older liturgies of the church we are the phrase in him, with him, and through him or variations of these three ideas. The three segments of the sermon are:

1. Belonging in him
2. Belonging with him
3. Belonging through him 

So let us begin with the idea of belonging in him.

Each one of us seeks a sense of belonging in the world. This yearning for belonging and finding our place is expressed throughout our lives. But just as Jesus encountered his temptation the word “if” plagues us. If I was a better person. If only people accepted me as I am. If only I had done more with my life. 

In our internal dialogue the word “if” can lead us to doubt our place of belonging in the world, to doubt the identity that we have forged from childhood, through our teenage years and into adulthood. In this way, at the heart of the story of the temptation of Jesus is a question of belonging and identity in the world.

The story of Jesus resisting turning the stones to bread and focusing on what God is saying offers us hope when we combine Jesus’s resistance with God’s mercy that Paul wrote about. He says that “one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all” and “so through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous”.

Because through the power of the Holy Spirit our lives are joined to Jesus life it is in him that we resist that temptation and it is in him that our belonging and place in the world are affirmed. This is means as good news “for all” people.

When we receive this message of the good news of the affirmation of our identity and our belonging in the world as we share in Jesus’s life this message should open us up to this truth for other people.

Sadly, rather than do this often we as people seek to define our belonging by excluding us.

Baptism is a sign of our belonging to God and to each other. In baptism we remember that we are drawn into Christ’s life, in him and with him and through him we belong.

Paul knew this, Paul was convinced of this, as he wrote to the Christians in Corinth. Before we move to part 2 of the sermon we are going to sing about the idea that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ. I will sing it through and then I invite you to sing it with me.

• When you reflect on your own life, what “if” statements tend to shape your sense of belonging or identity?
• In what ways have you experienced God’s affirmation of your place in the world?
• How does the idea that your belonging is “in him” (in Christ) change the way you see yourself and others?
• How might you open yourself to the truth that others are also affirmed in their belonging through Christ?

Message Part 2: Belonging Through Testing and Retreat

In the first part of the sermon, we reflect on our belonging in him in part two we are thinking our belonging with him.

In the story of the temptation Jesus is driven out into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. Last week I was speaking about thin spaces, places that we feel closer to God or sense God’s presence.

We did not have an Ash Wednesday service but for those who did participate they would have heard these words “from dust we come and to dust we return”. Lent invites us to go into the place of temptation with Jesus. It is a place not that we put God to the test, but we reflect on our place with God.

In the desert places in the thin space of our existence, we contemplate our shared mortality, God’s grace and our lives hidden in Christ’s life. We contemplate the gift of belonging that we have received and that we share with others.

Sometimes personal spiritual disciplines are portrayed negatively. Spiritual naval gazing. But there is validity in the solitary moments of faith which lead us deeper into the truth of our lives in Christ and with him. It is here that we discover our belonging in the world is not just about us as individuals but is about the way in which Christ is in all and has redeemed all.

These times of confrontation should not lead us into ourselves but lead us to a deeper recognition of the idea that we share our mortality with all other people. We are all flawed, we all have good within us, and we are all loved and drawn into Christ’s life. As we spend time with him in the desert we lean into our trust of God’s love and our unity with other people.

• Can you recall a “desert” or “thin space” experience in your life where you felt closer to God or wrestled with your sense of belonging?
• How do times of solitude or spiritual discipline help you discover your place “with him”?
• In what ways does recognizing your shared mortality with others deepen your compassion or sense of unity?
• How might you lean into God’s love and unity with others during times of personal testing?

Message Part 3: Belonging as a Communal Discovery

At the beginning of the service, we did an Acknowledgement of Country explaining that for people of First Nations heritage this was an important act in helping us as a nation move towards reconciliation and greater sense of shared belonging.

In this message I have then presented the idea because all our lives our in him in Christ, every person is given the gift of belonging in the world. Every person is in the image of God, in him and with him we experience the trials and testings of life on our journey to discover our sense of belonging.

In this section I want us to explore what it means to find our belonging through him. This belonging is in part discovered in the power of the Holy Spirit. 

The challenge that is given to us is to work as people to make space for each other and affirm the belonging that every person has in this world.

As I said before humans like to create boundaries between communities. We like to say who is in and who is it. There is a delicate and at time difficult balance in seeking to make communities that have what I would say are porous walls.

In our call to worship, we affirmed the idea that people could belong regardless of things like culture, age, gender, wealth, and ethnicity. Saying this and living it are two different things. It is true to say that in organising our life together as a community we always create boundaries whether intentionally or unintentionally.

For example, as I reflect on our nation for those of us not of First Nations heritage the furthest that we would go back is 8 or 9 generations. In looking at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the data tells us that nearly 1 in 3 Australian citizens were born overseas. We are diverse nation we are people from a great variety of backgrounds and as an aging population we rely on immigration for both skilled and unskilled workers.

It is interesting that Jesus’s last temptation involves the devil offering Jesus’s power over the nations, giving him authority. Jesus’s response is to move away from placing himself at the centre of power and authority and focussing on God, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

In the first week of the “For the Life of the World” study the group was challenged with the notion that whilst we are in the world we are not of the world. We live in exile whilst at the same time belonging in the world because we belong to God. The study suggested to us, “Our salvation is a call to live as exiles as we bless the world.”

We belong in him, with him, and through him and we meet him in every other person that we encounter.

As I conclude it is helpful to recall what Jesus says in Matthew 25:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

We belong in him, with him, and through him and so do all other people who live on the earth. This has implications for how we seek to accept welcome and include others into our church community, into our nation, and into the community of humanity to which we all belong.

• What boundaries (visible or invisible) exist in your community, and how might you help make them more “porous”?
• How does the idea that “we belong in him, with him, and through him” challenge or inspire your interactions with others?
• In what ways can you affirm the belonging of those who are different from you—culturally, socially, or otherwise?
• How does Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 25 shape your understanding of serving and welcoming others as an expression of belonging?